Simple Solutions for Your Island Home
By Grace Corradino

Brian and I see a lot of Fire Island homes and gardens in every town from Kismet through to Point O’ Woods. So often, our customers, neighbors and friends have come up with simple ideas which make taking care of our homes and gardens just a bit easier.

If some of these solutions are known to you, then you are way ahead of most of us.

1. Buy only combination locks for your bikes and wagons. If you can, buy the locks with combinations which allow four digits to be entered for the combination. Make all the combinations the same as either the address of your house or the four digits of your Fire Island phone number. It will be a lot less likely that you will forget the combinations.

2. Store your hoses under your decks. Buy only good quality hoses and just put them under the deck. Feed the nozzle end up through the decking so that only the nozzle is sitting on your deck. When you need the hose, you just pull it up to use it. When finished simply feed the hose back under your deck. This keeps your hoses stored neatly out of sight.

3. Purchase “feet” for your flower pots and containers. “Feet” keep your pots up off the deck affording better drainage to the pots. Keeping the containers off the deck also keeps the deck from acquiring permanent stains so that if you want to move the pots around next season, you do not have to worry about the stains from last year’s containers. Go to GardenersSupply.com.

4. Keep all of your large plastic containers from Costco, Walmart or BJ’s. These containers are great for storing flour, sugar or almost any other perishable food during the course of the summer. Ants, in particular, can not get in.

5. If you have a wooden screen door, buy a screen door closer. We have them on two of our screen doors.These devices, when installed, assure that your screen door will close tightly every time. They are available at any hardware store.

6. Do you have a house with a flat roof? If you do it is likely that the seagulls drop clam shells on your roof as a way to crack them open so that they can feast on the clams. If you string monofilament, a type of fishing line, on the roof miraculously those sea gulls know that the can not use your roof as a table top.

7. Take your screens down in the fall. First, brush them with a soft broom and then wash them off with water. Store them for the winter. That way, they will be ready to re-install when you return the following spring. This eliminates one dreaded springtime chore and fast tracks you to the enjoyment of your summer home when you return.

8. Make friends with a person who fishes. When the fish are in, you want to be on their distribution list. This might be our most valuable tip!

The authors live year round in FI. Grace @FireIslandLiving.com

BrianKerr@BrianKerrLandscaping.com.